'Better Call Saul' Renewed For Sixth And Final Season [TCA 2020]

AMC presented a Better Call Saul season five panel for the Television Critics Association yesterday. During the panel, creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould revealed that AMC has renewed them for a sixth season, which will be their final season. Throughout the panel, they elaborated more on the end of the Breaking Bad spinoff.Season five sees Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) fully embrace his Saul Goodman persona, who becomes Walter White's money laundering lawyer. Better Call Saul returns February 23 on AMC.

So far, each season of Better Call Saul has been 10 episodes, including the fifth. The last season will give you three bonus episodes."It's going to be 13 episodes," Gould said. "I was so proud to be part of Breaking Bad, because I felt like a lot of people did, that Vince and the rest of us, with some help that we managed to stick the landing on those 62 episodes, and we're going to try like hell to stick the landing on these 63 episodes."There is a certain poetic symmetry in giving Better Call Saul about as many episodes as Breaking Bad. They could have done a 12 episode final season, but they've just gotta get one more in. That's so Jimmy McGill. "Season-wise, it's gonna seem different, but it's almost the exact same number of episodes," Gilligan said. "This will be 63. I think with Peter's master plan here, which I think is an awesome one, is gonna be one more episode than Breaking Bad." 

There was a long wait between seasons four and five. Four ended in October of 2018. It will be almost a year and a half when season five premieres. The time between seasons five and six should be closer to a year or less, and they're already getting started."You're watching Season 5, but we're talking about Season 6, which will be premiering next year," Gould said. "We're about to start working on it just next month." 

After El Camino: A Breaking Bad movie aired, Aaron Paul pretty much ruled out appearing on Better Call Saul. He told Digital Spy that he can't imagine Jesse Pinkman appearing on the prequel show. Gilligan disagrees."It would be awesome to see," Gilligan said. Gould agreed."That would be awesome," Gould concurred. "Boy, I would love to work with Aaron and Bryan again with this show."Something tells us if Gilligan and Gould come up with a scene for Jesse Pinkman, Paul would be convinced."Once again, it's our annual TCA announcement that Walt and Jesse will not be in Season five," Gould said. "I'm hoping that El Camino took a little bit of the pressure [off]. Hopefully that's taken some of the sting out of not having Walt and Jesse."Gilligan added, "I would love to see them on Better Call Saul though before it ends, so who knows? We've got a whole other 13 episodes after these 10 that are already shot."

You will get one Breaking Bad cameo, Gould revealed."Episodes three and four are, I think, especially close to our hearts, I think it's fair to say because we have some of our Breaking Bad family returning," Gould said. "Dean Norris as Hank Schrader comes back in Episodes three and four, and Steven Michael Quezada, absolutely. They are great."Honestly, what took them so long? Hank was a DEA agent. It's not too hard to imagine him investigating a case involving Saul or Mike or Gus. So far, all the Breaking Bad cameos have been more clever than obvious, so we're excited to see how this plays out.

Robert Forster passed away On October 11, 2019. He'd already shot one last appearance as Ed on Better Call Saul. You'll see Jimmy call Ed in one of the flash forwards to his life as Gene, which Gould said he filmed while making El Camino. "I was so excited to get him into this episode," Gould said. "It wasn't the original plan, actually. We didn't think that we could possibly put that location back together, do everything else for that little scene. And actually, while Vince was shooting the feature, El Camino, I got a call from Melissa Bernstein, our brilliant producer. She said, 'Would you like to see Robert, instead of just hearing him?' And I said, 'Hell yes.' And so that scene was actually shot during the production of El Camino, at least that side of it. The other side, the side with Bob was shot, of course, directed by Bronwen Hughes but so you saw Bronwen Hughes and Vince Gilligan both directing a scene."